Democrat Steve Westly, who is running for Governor, gestures as he views election results on a computer in a hotel room election night at the Westin Bonaventure Hotel downtown Los Angeles, Tuesday, June 6, 2006.

Photo: Ann Johansson, Special To The Chronicle

Democrat Steve Westly, who is running for Governor, gestures as he...

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Democrat Steve Westly, who is running for Governor, right appears with his wife Anita before supporters at his primary election night party held at the Westin Bonaventure Hotel downtown Los Angeles, Tuesday, June 6, 2006.

Silicon Valley venture capitalist and former state Controller Steve Westly, a major Obama donor and campaign fundraiser, is the target of new Republican ads that attack him as an example of President Obama's "crony capitalism."

The Republican National Committee's Internet ads follow tough attacks from the other side on GOP presidential candidate Mitt Romney, primarily Obama's criticism of Romney's tenure at private equity firm Bain Capital and an ad featuring Romney singing "America the Beautiful" that highlights his offshore financial accounts and charges that he sent jobs overseas.

The Westly spot is part of what Republicans and Romney's campaign have dubbed their "Payoffs to Layoffs" messaging, which is designed to discredit Obama campaign donors who got "special access to the White House" followed by government grants.

The new GOP ads, graced by a photo of Westly, argue that the onetime California gubernatorial candidate "raised money for Obama, then got half a billion in taxpayer dollars."

Westly, a managing partner at the Westly Group, whose green-tech portfolio includes electric carmaker Tesla Motors, has raised $437,200 for the Obama campaign in the current campaign cycle and ranks as one of its major bundlers, according to the watchdog group OpenSecrets.org.

An early endorser of Obama, Westly was a California co-chairman for his 2008 campaign and served as one of its national co-chairs.

Tesla received a $465 million federal loan from the U.S. Department of Energy in 2011 - a fact mentioned in one of the GOP ads - and had $189 million to pay off as of February. Buyers are on waiting lists to get hold of the Palo Alto firm's Model S sedan.

The Romney campaign and Republicans have also pointed to the $535 million loan guarantee given to Solyndra, the Fremont solar energy firm that went bust last year.

'False, misleading'

"The attack is false, misleading and has no factual basis," Westly spokesman Joel Berman said in a statement Tuesday. "This is nothing more than a desperate attempt by the RNC to distract from governor Romney's record at Bain Capital as an outsourcer of American jobs and his failure to release details of his tax returns."

Westly may not be the only well-known Silicon Valley insider and Obama donor that the Republican National Committee has targeted, sources say: Legendary venture capitalist John Doerr, a billionaire whose entrepreneurial investments have helped build companies like Google, Amazon, Zynga and electric carmaker Fisker Automotive, reportedly is the subject of future RNC attacks.

Romney 'ashamed'

Romney, in a statement released Tuesday, hinted as much when he said he is "ashamed" to see Obama "hand out money to the businesses of campaign contributors." He cited "$500 million in loans to a company called Fisker that makes high-end electric cars, and they make the cars now in Finland."

"That kind of crony capitalism does not create jobs and it does not create jobs here," Romney said, in reference to the $529 million Department of Energy loan to Fisker, an Anaheim firm whose cars are engineered in California but built in Finland.

Westly, in a detailed response to the Internet ad attacking him, said he "never contacted the Department of Energy or the White House regarding loan or grant applications for Westly Group portfolio companies."

His service on an advisory board to Energy Secretary Steven Chu "is purely advisory," Westly said, "all meetings are open to the public and (the board) has no authority or oversight over DOE loans and grants."

RNC chair Reince Priebus said the ads attacking Obama supporters merely point to a pattern of behavior by the White House.

"While middle-class Americans are suffering, President Obama's political pals are 'doing fine' thanks to the billions in taxpayer dollars he has steered their way," Priebus said in a statement. "President Obama proclaims that he's a defender of the middle class but ... he's passing out their hard-earned tax dollars to his political cronies."

'Chicago-style' politics

Priebus called it "Chicago-style pay-to-play politics," saying Obama "couldn't keep his promises to the American people but kept promises to his top donors - special White House access and billions in stimulus dollars."

Republicans' targeting of Tesla and Westly as examples of Obama's "crony capitalism" appear to conflict with the position of the party's last presidential candidate, John McCain, who was effusive about Tesla and its future as a leader in technology.

McCain, highlighting efforts to encourage green technologies, spoke to reporters at a Bay Area news conference in 2008 before a backdrop of sleek Tesla sports cars and praised the automaker as a model of energy efficiency.

"I see this as the future of automotive technology in America," McCain said. "It clearly has numerous environmental impacts with regard to reduction of greenhouse gas emissions."

Westly, then a member of Tesla's board of directors, in turn praised McCain, saying that "he's finally started to catch up to Sen. Obama, who has been out front for several years on issues like raising fuel efficiency standards."